Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to tracking sport ball positions, particularly a system for tracking a ball's position and/or detecting when the ball hits a virtual target area on a playing surface.
Background
In most sports the position of a ball on or above the court, field, or other playing surface is important. The ball's position often dictates whether an opponent scores points, or dictates tactics that should be used be one or more opponents. For example, in tennis when one player hits the tennis ball to a far side of the court near a side line, the other opponent may need to move out of his or her desired position to return the ball and end up leaving most of the court open behind him/her.
When a player practices a sport and attempts to hit, throw, kick, or otherwise move a ball to a desired location on the playing surface, traditionally the player or a coach must visually determine whether or not the ball hit the desired location on the playing surface. In some fast-paced sports, determining where the ball hits the playing surface can be difficult, because in some cases the ball moves, hits the playing surface, bounces, and moves to another location faster than the human eye can process. When practicing, it can also be desired to keep a log of where the ball hits on the playing surface over multiple attempts. Traditionally, a player or coach would have to remember where the ball hit each time, record each hit manually on a chart, or capture the practice session on video so that the video can be reviewed to determine the location of each hit. This process can be time-consuming and/or labor intensive.
What is needed is a system that can determine when a ball or other object impacts a playing surface, and can record the location of the impact on the playing surface. The system should also determine whether a ball's impact against the playing surface was within one or more preset virtual target areas on the playing surface, and record information about successfully hit target areas.